Orthotics is a portion of the health care medical profession involved with the design, development, fitting and manufacturing of custom inserts which are directed at bracing and/or straightening weak or ineffective joints or muscles, and which may be worn inside a patient's shoes to improve the efficiency and reduce the stresses of walking.
The foot is one of the most complex features of the human anatomy. It consists of twenty-six bones, thirty-three joints, one hundred and twelve ligaments, three arches, four layers of tissue on the sole of the foot, and twenty intrinsic muscles. In order to effectively eliminate foot and leg ailments, solid support and, in some cases, corrective positioning of the foot may be required.
Generally, due to the wide range of sizes of feet, orthotic inserts may be custom-made using a cast taken of a foot using plaster. Next, custom-made orthotics or insoles may be made from a mold, which is a replicate of the plaster cast, using synthetic resins or other materials. Custom orthotics for feet typically contain a relatively rigid, resilient base comprising a heel portion and an arch portion, contoured to fit the bottom surface of the foot. Orthotic inserts may be inserted into footwear to reduce pronation of feet and to provide a therapeutic and corrective effect for foot ailments.
Studies have shown that inadequate foot support in the formative years of children can cause long-term health issues with major joints. Although highly beneficial in correcting early onset of podiatric conditions, custom orthotics for a child may be considered cost prohibitive, with frequent size alternations needed due to the rapid growth of the feet and the changing body physiology of the child.
Children's foot development occurs from birth through about age 17, when all bones and growth plates have reached their final position. The most critical period of this development is through the age of 7, when a child's arch is forming. By age three, more than 50% of the normal pediatric population lacks a defined arch, and this number declines to 24% at age six. The vast majority of shoes that children between the ages of 2-7 wear lack any support in the medial arch area, and the results are increased muscle strain and general fatigue of the foot. As research has shown, children with a flat foot or lower than normal arch can benefit greatly from the use of an arch support, or an orthotic insert. In addition, active children with normally developing feet may benefit from better support inside their shoes to encourage proper foot development.
What is needed is a system of orthotic inserts which are mass producible in sizes to address the progressive development of children's feet and anatomical features that may be found in children's feet that may not be found in the adult foot and which provide the relative arch height to neutralize the foot while supporting the arch.